I delivered a simpler form of this homily but I have expanded it here to give many
more references.

Today we give thanks to God for the great honor bestowed
on Mary in not allowing decay to touch her body. At the end of her earthly life
she was assumed body and soul into heaven. It was indeed fitting that no decay would touch her
body because she had given birth to Jesus and also because she was sinless. She
was immaculately conceived and remained sinless throughout her life. Death is
the result of sin as Scripture tells us (Rom 6:23) so therefore she was assumed body
and soul to heaven at the end of her earthly life.

One of the titles we give to our Lady is Ark of the
Covenant and our first reading opens with John’s vision of heaven in which
he sees something which would startle his contemporaries – he sees the Ark of
the Covenant (Rev 11:19). The Ark of the Covenant had been missing for centuries
before the time of Jesus and we can imagine the shock that John’s account would
have caused in the first century as he related that he saw the ark in heaven.
The Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament was precious not because of its
gold decoration but because it contained three precious items (Heb 9:4),

the two tablets of stone containing the ten commandments which had been written by the hand of God,

manna,

Aaron’s rod that budded.

We can say that Ark of the Covenant in the Old
Testament prefigured Mary in the New Testament, it was pointing forward to Mary
in the New Testament. How and Why? Mary carried in her womb

Jesus the living Word of God, the Word made flesh (not
just written on stone as in the Old Testament)

Jesus was the Bread of Life (John 6) (fulfillment of the
manna of the Old Testament)

Jesus was the Priest of the New Testament (Letter to the
Hebrews) (Aaron was a priest and those descended from his were priests but Jesus
is the Priest of the New Testament)

So the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament
was pointing forward to a far greater Ark of the Covenant in the New Testament,
Mary, who carried the living word of God, Jesus.

If we compare Mary visiting Elizabeth in our Gospel today
with King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem for the first
time we get further hints that the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament was
looking forward to Mary as the greater Ark of the Covenant in the New Testament:

David dances for joy in 2 Sam 6:5 and
John leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb in Luke 1:44.

David calls out, “How can the
ark of the Lord come to me?” in 2 Sam 6:9 and Elizabeth calls out, “why
is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
in Luke 1:43.

The ark of the Lord remained in the
house of Obed-edom the Gittite a few miles outside Jerusalem for three months,
and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his whole house in 2 Sam 6:11, and Mary
remained about three months with Elizabeth in Luke 1:56 a few miles outside
Jerusalem.

After John sees the Ark of the Covenant in heaven in our
first reading he sees another vision, as if to confirm that Mary is indeed the
Ark of the Covenant of the New Testament; he sees

“a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under
her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars…” (Rev 12:1)

This is the form of the image of Our Lady of
Guadalupe on the tilma of St. Juan Diego. The woman in John’s vision was
pregnant and giving birth to a male child and at the same time a dragon was
waiting to do harm to the child but both the mother and child were spared by
divine intervention. We can understand this vision of John as Israel in the Old
Testament giving birth to the Church in the New Testament and the dragon is the
devil trying to destroy the Church.

An even better way to understand John’s vision is that the
woman is Mary, the Ark of the Covenant in the New Testament, and she is helping
each of us to come to birth spiritually because she is the Mother of the Church
and the devil is making war on us. Some people find it difficult to see the
woman as Mary but when you read this passage in the context of the rest of
Scripture we can indeed see this passage as referring to Mary:

Although the passage says the woman gave birth in pain
(Rev 12:2) this does not have to contradict the dogma of Mary’s perpetual
virginity, her virginity before, during (painless) and after birth, because
elsewhere the Scriptures use the pain of childbirth to refer to spiritual
suffering, not physical (Rom 8:22; Gal 4:19; 2 Pet 2:8). So the pain of Mary
that is referred to here is her anguish as a mother for us her spiritual
children.

Later in his vision (not in the first reading) John says
he saw the dragon making war on other offspring of the woman (Rev 12:17) but
this also does not have to contradict Mary’s perpetual virginity because elsewhere
in Scripture the word “offspring” is used for spiritual offspring (e.g. Gal
3:19).

The woman being given the two wings of an eagle (Rev
12:14 not in the first reading) does not mean that the text cannot refer to Mary
because it could refer to the sinlessness that she enjoyed from her first
moment.

With good reason therefore down through the
centuries Popes see the woman as Mary and specifically as Mary the Mother of the
Church. Pope Pius X said of the woman of Rev 12,

Mary’s Assumption into heaven, having completed
her life while remaining sinless, reminds us, as Pope John Paul II said, that
the goal of the Church is heaven. We pray that one day the whole Church may be
in heaven pure and holy like Mary in heaven,

“in the Most Holy Virgin the Church has already
reached that perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle.” (Redemptoris
Mater §47)

In heaven Mary as Mother of the Church cares for us here
on earth, helping us to become more like her son Jesus. Pope John Paul II,
quoting Pope Paul VI, stated,

“We believe that the Most Holy Mother of God, the new
Eve, the Mother of the Church, carries on in heaven her maternal role with
regard to the members of Christ, cooperating in the birth and development of
divine life in the souls of the redeemed.”

“was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to
be generated to the perfect charity of God, and to eternal happiness. And the
birth pains show the love and desire with which the Virgin from heaven above
watches over us, and strives with unwearying prayer to bring about the
fulfillment of the number of the elect.”

Today we give thanks to God for the grace and favor
bestowed on Mary in her Assumption body and soul into heaven at the end of her
life. It was a fitting reward for her who was the Ark of the Covenant who
brought Jesus into the
world, a far greater Ark of the Covenant than the Ark of the Covenant in the Old
Testament. In heaven Mary continues to intercede for us, helping us to reach the
goal of heaven which she enjoys. “…after this our exile, show unto us the
blessed fruit of thy womb Jesus.”

Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now, and at the hour of our death.
Amen.